Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition

Chapter 13. Working with XML

This is not a book about XML, the eXtensible Markup Language; but XML has become such a part of an ASP.NET programmer's life that the topic deserves its own chapter. Although most of the XML functionality in the .NET Framework appears to be in the System.Xml namespace, you can find XML's influence throughout the entire Framework including System.Data and System.Web.

XML is oft maligned and misunderstood. To some, XML is simply a text-based markup language; to others it is an object serialization format or a document-encoding standard. In fact, XML has become the de facto standard manner in which data passes around the Internet. XML, however, is not really a technology as much as it is a set of standards or guiding principles. It provides a structure within which data can be stored; but the XML specification doesn't dictate how XML processors, parsers, formatters, and data access methods should be written or implemented. System.Xml and other namespaces contain the .NET Framework 2.0's view on how programmers should manipulate XML. Some of its techniques, such as XSLT and XML Schema, are standards-based. Others, like XmlReader and XmlWriter, started in the world of the .NET Framework and now Java has similar classes. The XML consumed and produced by these techniques is standards-based and can be used by other languages that consume XML, but the .NET Framework has its own unique style around the uses of XML.

This chapter covers all the major techniques for ...